Feasibility and Efficacy of Reiki Versus Massage for Cancer-Related Fatigue in Patients With Breast and Prostate Cancer Receiving Hormone Therapy.

The short version

This three-arm randomized pilot trial with 87 adults explored whether Reiki, a biofield therapy in which a practitioner rests or holds hands lightly near the body to work with the body's energy field, could ease cancer-related fatigue as well as therapeutic massage does. Cancer-related fatigue is a persistent, rest-resistant exhaustion driven by cancer treatment itself — it affects roughly 6 in 10 people on aromatase-inhibitor therapy for breast cancer and about 4 in 10 on long-term androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) for prostate cancer, and unlike ordinary tiredness it does not improve with sleep. Because many patients cannot manage the exercise-based therapies oncology guidelines usually recommend, the study looked at two passive, low-effort alternatives instead. Participants — 57 with breast cancer on aromatase inhibitors and 30 with prostate cancer on ADT — were randomly assigned to two Swedish-massage sessions, two Reiki sessions, or four Reiki sessions, each delivered by licensed practitioners in up to 75-minute visits over one to two weeks. Fatigue was tracked with the well-validated 9-item Brief Fatigue Inventory at baseline, weekly through six weeks, and again at a one-month follow-up. All three groups reported real, clinically meaningful drops in fatigue by week six, with benefits still holding a month later. Statistically, the massage and Reiki groups did not differ from each other, but Reiki's improvements were consistently larger and grew with more sessions: on the total fatigue score, the effect size (Cohen's d, where 0.8 is considered large) was 0.57 for massage, 0.87 for two Reiki sessions, and 1.16 for four Reiki sessions — with a similar pattern for the "worst fatigue" and "fatigue interference" measures. Looked at by cancer type, both therapies helped breast-cancer patients across the board, but for prostate-cancer patients only Reiki improved every fatigue measure, while massage helped only the single worst-fatigue item. No one in either therapy arm reported a treatment-related adverse event. These results position Reiki as a safe, well-tolerated option that may match or exceed massage for cancer-related fatigue, particularly for men on ADT, and hint that four sessions work better than two. As a small pilot without a placebo or "sham Reiki" comparison arm, it cannot rule out expectancy or attention effects, and its per-group sizes (26-30 people) are too small to draw firm conclusions — the authors call for larger, sham-controlled trials next.

Key findings

• In this 87-person pilot trial, both Reiki (a biofield therapy in which a practitioner holds or rests their hands lightly near the body) and Swedish massage produced statistically significant, clinically meaningful reductions in cancer-related fatigue after six weeks.
• Reiki's benefits were somewhat larger than massage's and grew with more sessions: the standardized effect size for total fatigue reduction rose from 0.57 (massage) to 0.87 (two Reiki sessions) to 1.16 (four Reiki sessions), where 0.8 or higher is considered a large effect.
• For men with prostate cancer on androgen-deprivation therapy, only Reiki improved every fatigue measure tested, while massage improved just one of three.
• No adverse events occurred in either therapy arm, and both are passive interventions, unlike exercise-based fatigue programs.
• Because this was a small pilot study without a placebo or 'sham Reiki' comparison group, larger controlled trials are still needed before Reiki can be recommended as strongly as massage is in current cancer-care guidelines.

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